Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/orange-county-homeless/)
The nearly 7,000 people officially homeless n Orange County should be a wake up call to the County and all 34 cities to start building affordable and permanent supportive housing, in addition to shelters, according to experts in the field.
Medical field teams will treat homeless people living on the streets after a federal judge pressured CalOptima — the county insurance plan for the poor and elderly — which also last week earmarked $100 million to homeless services.
Homeless people now will be visited and treated by medical teams on the streets after the CalOptima Board of Directors unanimously voted to immediately begin the program throughout Orange County.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, after years of rapid growth in Orange County homeless deaths, issued an emergency request this week describing a “public health crisis in the County leading to the deaths of hundreds of people experiencing homelessness.”
Roughly 1,300 people are sleeping in homeless shelters throughout Orange County, with all big shelters located in north and central Orange County in cities like Santa Ana and Anaheim, according to unofficial numbers provided to Voice of OC.
The two-day count of people living on the streets of Orange County finished Thursday night.
But volunteer teams reported difficulty finding homeless people during the first day of the two-day countywide homeless count.
They’re counting the number of homeless people in each city as part of a requirement for federal funding to help combat homelessness.
Anaheim officials cleared out homeless encampments at Maxwell Park Friday morning and sent roughly 30 people to the newly opened 200-bed emergency homeless shelter near Angel Stadium four days before Christmas, as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit.
An emergency 200-bed homeless shelter is slated to open near Angels Stadium Dec. 20 after the City Council decided its other two shelters, which are scheduled to open in early 2019, won’t be up in time to help homeless people escape the winter weather.